The mud gets in her mouth, her trunk, her eyes disoriented, she gasps for breath but gets a mouthful of muck instead. She struggles to free herself, but every movement drags her deeper. She stumbles on the slippery riverbank and slides into a slurry of clay, sand, and fresh snowmelt. Perhaps the warmth of the sun makes the mother careless, and for a moment she loses track of her calf. The long winter is over birdsong and the scent of damp loam fill the air. The sky is brilliant blue, and a dry wind hisses through the grasses, which billow like oceanic swells across a steppe 10,000 miles wide, spanning the northern arc of the Ice Age world. A calf ambles close to her mother’s huge legs, brushing their long, glossy hair now and then with her trunk. The mammoth herd approaches the rushing river. This story appears in the May 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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